


Four Corners Has the World, and Four Winds

by HSavinien



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Foursome - F/M/M/M, Friends to Lovers, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:57:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are out of balance, people fight, Adam talks to an angel, and Pepper fixes things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Corners Has the World, and Four Winds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [malicehaughton@livejournal.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=malicehaughton%40livejournal.com).



> Beta thanks to Vulgarweed, Trojie, and yuri_shoujo@livejournal.com.  
> Written for the Good Omens Holiday Exchange 2012.

Pepper starts it all. Well, really, it's Pepper who  _stops_ the Them faffing about with other people. Other People always have ideas about taking them away from the Them.

After Brian gets in a shouting match with a perfectly nice young man over Spring holidays about Brian's being more interested in pissing around with his childhood friends than having a boyfriend, Pepper gets a considering look in her eyes. When the Psychology student Wensley takes to the movies observes that the four of them seem a bit unhealthily close, he politely disagrees, then pays for her cab home and never calls her again. Wensley tells the rest of the Them over breakfast the next morning and Pepper chews slowly on her toast for a moment before clapping him on the back and offering the teapot. The pretty dreadlocked woman at the till of the organic foods shop shoots Pepper down without hesitation with a, "Honey, you're cute, but I'm a lesbian. I'm not interested in dating you  _and_ your three boyfriends." Pepper doesn't share that story, but Adam knows about it anyway and distracts Brian and Wensley from asking about it when Pepper's a little off-kilter for the next few days.

Adam doesn't even try to date, to be honest. He's explained that he doesn't like the time it takes from everything else, then they sort of forget to ever ask him about it again. He feels a bit guilty about that, but not enough to stop. Reining in his influence takes a lot of effort as it is and no one could fault him saving himself a few discussions about that decision. 

Anyway, over the summer, Pepper runs off on a hiking trip around Edinburgh with her sister for two whole weeks. Brian tries to get Wensley and Adam to play his zombie videogames, but Adam turns out to be unfairly good at them and Wensley complains about the unrealistic layout of the towns and buildings until Brian pitches the controller at his head. Wensley makes them a chicken korma and all three of them pick at it because it isn't nearly as good when you follow the recipe exactly and Pepper isn't adding spices to kick it up. Adam spends more and more time in his bedroom picking discordantly at his guitar and not talking to anyone. By midway through the second week they can barely look at each other without somebody blowing up.

“Look,” Brian grumbles, “Just because you keep detailed notes on everyone's...everything-” 

“It's not a matter of keeping notes,” Wensley snaps back. “It's a matter of remembering that I'm gluten intolerant and if nobody buys the wheat-free bread then I haven't got anything for lunch.” 

Adam groans. “Just...go buy him some more bread, Brian.”

“Whyn't you do it, then?” Brian growls. “I already went to the market! If he needed his special bread he-” Brian turns back to glare at Wensleydale “-you ought to have written 'gluten-free bread' on the list instead of just 'bread'!” He tosses the canvas shopping bag at Adam. “I've had enough manking around on the buses to last me the whole week. You do it.”

“I didn't forget that our housemate had allergies. You did it wrong, you fix it.”

“Oh, both of you can fuck right off!” Brian storms out the door, grabbing his gardening gloves on the way and growling under his breath.

“That was...so helpful,” Wensley says drily. “Really, Adam, I don't know what I would have done without you to smooth things over.”

Adam can feel the back of his neck prickling in irritation. “I was only trying to help. Why don't you go for more bread yourself?”

“Because I've got a Skype interview for next semester's internship in twenty minutes and was hoping not to do it hungry,” Wensley snaps. “Only there doesn't appear to be anything in the house I can eat because you took the last of the apples this morning and Brian's shopping didn't actually include anything useful unless I want to spoon peanut butter out of the jar into my mouth.” Then he stomps off back to his room and slams the door. Adam can't even blame him. 

That evening everyone's in a strop. They row over Adam's cooking. Brian keeps up a running commentary on the aesthetics of every character's arse through an entire episode of Wensley's favorite show. The rising patches of red on the back of Wensley's neck chart his steadily growing irritation. When Wensley starts flipping channels every two seconds, too fast for Brian to figure out what's playing on any of them, Adam decides to chuck it in and go out. 

There's a walking trail not far from their house-share that feels a bit like Tadfield to Adam, but as he trudges down it, scuffing his shoes, he just feels somehow muted. They're falling apart. Dusk gathers around him, cooling the smell of baked dirt and grass and he thinks about Jasmine Cottage and summers in the quarry with the Them and Dog and the clarity of knowing what he wanted and how to make everyone work. A pebble skips off as the toe of his shoe catches it and he stops to find it. Weighing it in his hand, Adam tosses it a few times, then shies it at a tree.

“Hello.”

Adam's head whips around and he stares at the person sitting on one of the benches beside the trail. “You're...the angel.”

“Well, yes. Aziraphale.” Aziraphale waves a little. “Sorry, dear boy, didn't mean to startle you. The cloud of psychic gloom's been growing around you for a bit now and I thought I'd drop by.”

Adam looks Aziraphale up and down. “Been a while. You've changed a bit.” 

Aziraphale shrugs. “I'm not bound by the same rules as humans, even if I am rather out of a job. Crowley and I both like a change now and then.” She's a lot smaller than she was, only about five feet tall and her hair's greyer than he remembers, though just as curly, caught up in a bun at the back. Her coat's oversized and boxy and a color that, if Adam squints, might be what people mean by the word 'taupe'...or possibly 'salmon'. One of the lapels droops in a way that would drive Wensley mad. Her handbag would comfortably contain half a set of encyclopedias and only the oncoming darkness mutes the eye-searing teal and lavender plaid. Adam rather likes the obvious oddity of the combination. “Crowley's not about tonight, by the way.”

“Oh.” Adam shakes his head and settles next to Aziraphale on the bench. “Nah, I wasn't wondering about that. Just admiring your coat.”

Aziraphale preens a bit. “I like it too, thank you. Now,” she props her chin in her hand, “do tell me what's got you all in a bother, won't you? I'd like to help.”

Adam shrugs. “I dunno. It's just my friends. We've all been driving each other 'round the bend lately.”

“All of you?”

“Well, Pepper's on holiday, but Brian and Wensleydale and me.”

“Hm...” Aziraphale pulls a pair of spectacles out of her enormous handbag and puts them on to peer more closely at Adam. “And you have no notion why?”

“I guess we're just...getting tired of each other.”

“Really?”

“Well, they're important to me...”

Aziraphale nods encouragingly. “Yes?”

“But it seems like everything we do sets each other off, then somebody has to be snarky back and it only escalates.”

“Go on. What is it that you like about them?”

“Well, Brian's great fun, always up for anything rough and tumble, don't take any kind of crap from anyone. He and Pepper are always after defending the weak and oppressed, sort of thing. Wensley's really driven. He's always known best of any of us what he wants to do, which is brilliant and all, even if it is a load of maths. I think he could design a real spaceship, if he wanted, make Pepper the first English person on Mars. She'd like that. Pepper's just...she's Pepper. She fights 'longside Brian and helps Wensley be spontaneous, and keeps me on even footing. Pepper could be an astronaut or Prime Minister, or get witchin' lessons from Anathema. She could do anything she wanted, I think, and she doesn't have my...background.”

“Thank goodness,” Aziraphale mutters.

“And you know what she wants to do? Put together a shelter for kids. Brian'll get 'em out in the gardens and she'll teach them a trade and Wensley will help with lessons and I can do music and art and we'll make sure they get fed and have clothes and a place to go when they need it. But it's not going to work because we're falling apart.” Adam slumps in his seat. 

“And you won't...?” the angel enquires delicately. She sounds calm. Adam thinks she must have got very good at  _seeming_ calm over the years.

“No,” Adam sighs. “If I let myself do that it wouldn't be real. I'd know it. And when I can't believe in something I've made, it falls apart anyway.”

Aziraphale makes a thoughtful noise. 

Adam looks at her. “What?”

“Perhaps you'd better let it sort itself out, then. I can't imagine things will go much longer before something...shifts.”

“That's not a lot of help.” 

“I know, my dear. Unfortunately, you're right. If anyone meddles beyond human means, then it won't be real.”

Adam sighs and levers himself off the bench. It's full dark by now and the stars are half-covered by clouds. “Yeah... I'd best go check Brian and Wensley haven't broken anything.”

“Do try to cheer up. You've just got to find the proper balance. It'll turn out all right in the end.” 

Adam grumbles noncommittally and almost doesn't hear the angel murmur something about the atmosphere disturbing the houseplants.

***

Pepper comes back on Saturday, a day early, because half of Scotland's been hit with torrential rains that don't look like letting up for a week. The entire house sighs in relief. By Friday, Brian and Wensley's feud had progressed to icy silences with each other and snapping at Adam whenever he tried to talk with them. Pepper's a relief in and of herself. She takes each of them aside in turn and demands to know the details of the fight. Adam explains as best he can, but the Great Bread Quarrel and the Television Controversy and “We all just seem to be annoying now” seem inadequate.

“Right,” she says at dinner. “I think we should date.”

Brian and Wensley's eyes flick to Adam, then back to Pepper. Adam starts, “Pepper, what?”

“No. Not me and Adam. All of us. The four of us.”

“ _What_?” Adam coughs.

“Are you mental?” Brian asks.

“You can't be serious,” Wensley puts in. “Look how poorly we did this week. I can't think that getting closer is going to help.”

“Why not?” Pepper demands. “Things stopped working because I left, didn't they? We've been dancing around pretending we want to date other people when I, at least, really just want to be left alone with you lot, even if you are proper tossers to each other and me sometimes. We only get wrongfooted when we lose somebody or think we're about to.”  
  
Adam mentally counts backwards through their last rough patches.

“Even if there is some correlation,” Wensley protests, ears bright red, “it doesn't mean that...that sex is going to fix things.”

“Oh really? Then you're not blindingly attracted to the rest of us?” She only stares at Wensley for a moment before switching her gaze to Brian, then Adam. Pepper licks her lips. Adam feels himself swallow hard, as if from a long way off.

Brian coughs. “But, you know, what if it makes things worse?”

“Then it'll have only sped up the inevitable, won't it?” Pepper drops her gaze. “I think...we need each other. For balance. I think we always have. Otherwise I go off half-cocked, Brian doesn't bother to wash up and eat properly, Wensley gets stuck running only on numbers, and Adam goes off in his own head and gets lost there.”

The Them look around at each other. Wensley's blushing, Brian's tearing his napkin to bits, and Adam...Adam's feeling something click. “That sounds...” He clears his throat. “That sounds like an interestin' idea to me.”

Brian's shoe bumps his under the table. “You think?”

“I do,” Wensley says quietly. “Fancy all of you, I mean. I have done since I was young.”

“Worth a shot, then?” Pepper asks, a note of triumph building in her voice.

“Guess so.”

After a few seconds, Brian asks plaintively, “Er, how do we start?”

“Table's a bit in the way,” Wens observes.

“Adam's bed's biggest,” Pepper points out.

“All right. My room, then?”

They're awkward getting there, touching too little, then too much, until they've all piled onto Adam's bed (king-sized, bought secondhand) and Pepper lets out a noise of frustration, grabs Wensley by the shirtfront and kisses him soundly. He squeaks. Adam and Brian look at each other, Adam shrugs, and Brian leans in.

It's hot and wet and sweet and messy, in the way Brian always is. Adam opens his mouth for Brian's tongue, nips and nibbles it, curls a hand round Brian's ribs. When they back off for air, Pepper and Wensley are watching, Pepper predatory and Wensley hungry. Pepper slides between the two of them and plops down in Brian's lap while Wensley pulls Adam over for his own snog. Wensley's got Adam's trousers open in a flash and one hand down the back of them, sliding them down. Adam grins into the kiss and lets him, interested in the noises Wensley stifles when Adam rubs the pads of his fingers up Wensley's spine to tangle in his hair. When they all swap 'round again, Pepper bites at Adam's mouth, tongue smoothing along his lower lip the next second. Something Brian does makes Wensley laugh and roll off him, then they're all in a pile again and hands are everywhere and there are just too many clothes. Wensley proves very good at stripping other people off, so once they're naked, Adam, Brian, and Pepper gang up on him and send his clothing flying to the corners of the room and pet and kiss him until he's bright red and breathless from laughing. Wensley struggles free and puts Brian in a headlock until he stops threatening to tickle, then kisses Brian hard. Adam grins at Pepper and grabs one of Brian's hands, licking down from palm to wrist. Pepper traces a fingertip up the inside of Brian's leg, drawing circles that make him twitch from trying not to kick. Then Brian's rolling free and tackling Pepper and Adam takes advantage of her distraction to lean over and nibble softly under her breast. Wensley kisses under her ear and she squirms and makes pleased sounds, lacing her hands in both their hair as she and Brian trade kisses like blows. Then the Them, his best and oldest friends, turn on Adam and there's a fierce, filthy, hungry joy in the three of Them that cracks Adam's face in a grin. “Well, come on then.” They do.

***

Adam's breath keeps hitching in his throat because Pepper's rocking on top of him and hot around him. Her face has gone blotchy red and pale and Brian's big hand leaves fingerprints on her hip as he bites at her shoulder. The rough hair on Wensley's legs scratches Adam's in a rhythm slightly off of Pepper's as Wens fucks into Brian. Adam slides his hand over Brian's, clasping his wrist, and feels it tense and flex as Wensley moves. Adam feels  _all of it_. He burns with it and feeds it back to the rest of Them in as small, manageable doses as he can, each bubble of  _sensation_ making somebody groan or clench or scratch that little extra bit and set the others off again. Pepper hisses through her teeth and grabs Adam's free hand to wrap it around her breast, then tweaks the nipple of the other. She twines fingers through Brian's hair and Adam feels the pressure in his own scalp, feeds her the feel of Wensley caught tight and lube-slick in Brian, gives Wensley Pepper's cunt squeezing tight and the beat of her approaching orgasm, shows Brian how it feels to press steadily into Pepper, takes Wensley's fingers stroking quickly and sure around Brian's cock. Somebody – Adam thinks it might be him – whimpers.

Pepper yells and then everything crashes in a welter of sensation and overstimulation and Adam blanks out too much to figure out what exactly happens when. After a minute or two, Wensley – ever prepared – fetches a damp cloth and sets about cleaning everyone off, more or less, and pitches the condoms in the bin before anybody can roll over on them. That done, he crawls back into the middle of the pile as his just reward for a job well done and mouths sleepily at Adam's jaw and ear until Adam turns his head enough to nip Wensley's lower lip, then curl his tongue lazily with Wensley's, humming affectionately. A startled noise pops both their heads up to see Brian, two fingers slicking into Pepper while she mauls his neck with lovebites to match the impressive ones he'd given her shoulder. Adam rubs a foot down Brian's back and Brian leans absently into the touch, most of his concentration devoted to (Adam feels it with a spike of muted arousal) curling his fingers in just the right way. Pepper's head jerks back with a gasp and a shudder all down her body, then she grabs Brian's wrist tight to stop his hand moving and shivers and shivers until Wensley slides over to curl in a hug around her. Pepper pats his cheek clumsily.

Adam slides into sleep.

He wakes later, his back pressing warm against someone else's. Pepper. Brian's pinched two-thirds of Adam's pillow and he's drooling on Adam's shoulder. It's disgusting, but sets a warm, comfortable flutter in Adam's chest anyway. Adam cranes his neck around as best he can without dislodging Brian and manages to catch a glimpse of Pepper, leg thrown proprietarily over Wensley's hip, with one of Wensley's hands caught between her breasts. Adam grins to himself and pats Brian's back. Pepper snuggles back against him, her back warm and a bit sticky with sweat.

“It'll work out,” Adam tells them all quietly. “I won't force it. I won't have to, 'cause it's  _us_.” Wensley snores softly. Adam chuckles and settles back to sleep some more.


End file.
